Katrina
by twilight35711
Summary: A young girl who lives with dragons worries about getting picked by the queen dragon.
1. The Time of Dragons

Katrina: Dragon Princess

Chapter 1: Time Of The Dragon

"Katrina, come get the nest ready for Jaquelene," her nest mother said, "her eggs are getting ready to hatch."

Katrina got up from her silken bed and brushed off her cashmere gown. Her hair, as golden as the rays of the sun, was coming out of her careful braids. Her mother would kill her for this. Ah, well, the queen's eggs were hatching, that was one of the biggest days of the year, when the golden egg hatched, and the babies made her choice of the riders. She was just old enough this year to be a choice for a rider. All girls and boys ages 18-21 were put around the eggs; and when the babies hatched, all the dragonets that were girls were put on one side with the young women, and the boys were put with the young men. She ran out, her silk slippers making almost no noise on the stone floors. She tried to do her braids while running, but they turned out a mess. She just let her hair swing out of the braids, running her hands through her hair, breaking the tangles. Her hair swung almost to the floor, the girls and women weren't allowed to cut their hair, and grew it out their whole life long.

The dragons were all crooning; they knew that the eggs were hatching. The sands that were in the hatching bowl were steaming hot, the dragons constantly breathing fire on it to heat up the eggs. She saw that most of the young men and women were standing where they had been taught. Her place in the circle was open, and her two best friends, Julia and Clarissa, were standing on either side of the spot. She went to Jaquelene, and comforted her; she was not yet ready to let the dragonets in the eggs go. Soon, there were cracks in the eggs and they were shaking. Then, as everybody was watching, the first egg cracked. It was a small brownish-black male dragon, one of the queen's daughter's eggs. Then, he waddled over to Jason, the strongest of the young men, and whimpered, then Jason yelled out, "His name is Larson!!!"

This was the first bonding; it was the most important, because then all the other eggs started to hatch. The next to hatch was a large orange egg, with a pattern like a dragon. Then, a larger, bronze dragon pecked its way out of the egg. It crawled over to another young male, and crooned its pleasure when it was fed meat. Then, the moment everyone had been waiting for, after all the other eggs had hatched, there were 3 males and 4 females left, eggs and people. The normal eggs hatched and Katrina was the only one left. She was afraid that she wasn't right for the dragon, the queen. Then, as she and everybody watched, the golden egg started shaking and cracking, and a small hole appeared. Then, a tiny head appeared, this female was going to be small, and crooned. Then, the tiny queen clawed her way out of the egg and her skin gleamed with the light of the sun. Everybody gasped; the young queen had a white moon on her back that was the sign of a great dragon. Nobody thought that this tiny dragon would amount to anything but being the mate of the large bronze dragon that had hatched second.

The queen crawled over to Katrina and she felt a pushing on her mind, like that of a pin on a board. She opened her mind to it and the tiny dragon projected the image of food onto her mind. She called for a bowl of meat and fed all of it to the queen. Then, the dragon pushed one word into her mind, Mariana, her name, the name of the first queen of the dragons. When I yelled out her name, everybody became very silent, because everybody knew that you can't lie about your dragon's name, and no other dragon had had that name. Normally, the tiny dragons picked names of other dragons that were living at the time. That way, the names stayed in rotation for a long time. This however, was a completely different situation. This name was never recycled; no young dragon ever picked this name since they knew it was of a dragon queen. Then, the other young dragons bowed down on their small knobby knees to bow down to a great queen. This was the beginning of a magical time when nobody was safe, except for the queen, and her rider.


	2. The Beginning of a New Time

Chapter 2

The Beginning of a New Time

"Katrina, Mariana, come on, we need to get going!" Julianna cried.

Katrina twisted her long hair into a knot at the small of her back, letting two pieces of her golden hair frame her face and curl under her chin. Her tiny dragon flew down from her perch to curl around her waist, and Katrina walked out of her suite down to the lobby of the hotel in Markania, and ran into Jason, he was second in royalty. She, however, was first, so he bowed down to her. She just pulled him up and into the embrace that had become quite common between them, as their dragons had started to show interest in each other. He pulled away but kissed her again and put his arm around her. They walked into the lobby and met Julianna, Marisia, Lily, Clarissa, and Alexia and their dragons. Juliana's was a large pink dragon with black stripes down her tail, Marisia's was a tiny little black dragon with a gold muzzle. Lily's dragon was a medium sized bright yellow dragon with orange bottom scales; Clarissa had a plain brown dragon with no pattern whatsoever. And Alexia, hers was a beautiful silver dragon with gold shot through her tail, muzzle, and claws, the closest any dragon got to be a princess.

They whistled when they saw Jason with his arm around her, and she just giggled with the rest of them, kissing him on the neck, and her dragon nuzzling his. Mariana crooned and flew over to curl around Larson, who, surprisingly, was smaller than her, an odd thing for the king of dragons, since the two had imprinted, Katrina could see it in her eyes. Jason pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, "Darling, we must catch the next flight to Lovington, our honeymoon cannot be canceled, and the flight is leaving soon."

She went over and hugged everybody who had come to see them off, and then waved from the back of the cargo eagle1 which was to take them away. They felt the wings on either side of them jostle with the start of takeoff. They turned around to see the ground flying away from them with amazing speed. Then, almost as soon as the flight had started, the flight ended and they looked around to see numerous couples getting out of dragons and eagles to check into the suites. Of course, since they were the dragon queen and king, they got the best suite, open to the skies so the dragons could come and go as they pleased.

They looked around to see most of the couples wearing white, the women wearing white, silken wedding dresses with pearls and lace. The men were wearing white suits with white ties and shoes. Katrina, however, was wearing a black silk dress laden with black lace and covered with a black shawl over her face, her silk slippers just barely showing underneath the dress and her hand covered in black gloves. She had black pearls from the Red Sea on the shawl and thick black kohl around her eyes. Jason was wearing a black suit with a black bowler hat low over his eyes. They were in mourning for Jaquelene, who had died soon after Mariana had imprinted upon Larson, for then it was concluded that there would be more young dragons in a few months. The queen and king grew at an alarming rate, ready to mate after 1 year of their birth. The riders were entrusted to keep them from mating until they were at least old enough to ride, if not breathe fire. The queen and king were already big enough to ride, and in a few days they would be able to breathe fire, and both dragon and rider would be allowed to mate.

They flew on their dragons up to their suite and settled onto the soft downy blanket that was on the floor and watched their dragons play fighting.


	3. A Time of Changes

Chapter 3

A Time of Changes

After Katrina and Jason had been there for two days, they were sitting on the ground in the park by the hotel in which they were staying. Mariana and Larson were lounging on the ground in front of them; they had just come from the Show of Dragons, where all of the most famous dragons performed tricks in the air. Jason put his arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear, "Baby, I do wish they would start to breathe fire, they have kept us waiting for way too long."

Just as Katrina was about to reply, they heard a coughing sound from Mariana. They looked over just in time to see a lick of fire shoot out of Mariana's mouth. Katrina ran over to Mariana and started scratching her scales behind her horns. She yelled out "YES! SHE'S FINALLY OLD ENOUGH!"

Just then, Larson also burped out a flame of fire, and Jason ran over and rejoiced with Katrina. Then, his voice husky, said, "You know, this means that they are old enough to mate, and we are allowed to too."

Katrina just smiled at him and nodded. They walked up to their room with the dragons following them. They allowed their dragons to fly away into the sky, and went to the bed of the suite. When sunset came about, Katrina and Jason were lying under the covers, watching the sunset from their dragon's eyes. They knew that when they had been busy, their dragons had been just as busy. They waited until it was completely dark outside, with thousands of stars out in the sky, and all of the moons showing in the night. Then, with Katrina in a midnight blue silk dress, her hair falling down her back in curls of sunlight, and Jason in a white suit and a black shirt, they went to the twilight ball.

There, at the ball, they danced till the sun came up. And then, in the morning, they packed up all of their belongings, and they got on their dragons to fly home. They twisted and twirled through the air, flying past all of their childhood play places, as all of the people in the fields looked up to see their king and queen pass. Their dragon's tails dancing in the air, they flew all the way back to the hatching ground, landing on the ledges nearest to their rooms. All of the other dragons bugled on their return. Mariana and Larson showed off by blowing fire onto the eggs laying on the field, and they saw some of the next choices for the dragons jump back as the flame shot past their faces.

They ran down from the ledge to the old queen and her rider. The old queen had fallen ill in the past few months, and her once golden skin had turned gray with age and she had a white sickly pallor around the edge of her skin. Her rider's hair was now gray with age, and her golden eyes had crow's eyes at the corners. Her once beautiful aura turned many colors. They both started babbling at once, till the rider held up her hand and pointed at Katrina, ignoring Larson. Katrina spoke in a hurried voice, "Our dragons can finally breathe fire! Then, at the ball, there was some other queens born at the same time, and none of their dragons can breathe fire, and only mine can, and its awesome. Then, we went, and now, Mariana is gonna' lay her eggs in a couple of months. And ya, it sooooo cool!"

The old rider just nodded and didn't speak. Katrina and Jason went up to their room, allowing their dragons to fly freely in the sky. They ignored all calls from their fellow riders and fell into bed together. There, they stayed till the next morning, when they would be very surprised what awaited them.


	4. A Time of War

Chapter 4

The Time of Wars

Katrina woke to the screaming of the riders and the bugle of the dragons. Jason hadn't awoken, so she decided to let him sleep. She ran out in her sleeping clothes to see what was the racket. She saw Clarissa run past her screaming, "The new time of wars has begun!"

She quickly pulled on the fireproof outfit for fighting other dragons and jumped on Mariana's back. Mariana lurched up and flew high into the sky above the hatching grounds. There, they saw that all of the eggs had been cracked. They would have no new hatchlings for the recruits. Other riders were also taking their dragons up with other recruits on the dragon's backs. She looked over to see Julianna pull up beside her.

"The dragons and the riders from the other clans are here, they want our hatching grounds and rooms, they are getting too big for their own! The leaders want to meet with you and Jason…where is Jason?"

"Sleeping, I can take care of it." Katrina replied.

She told Mariana to bring her down to the meeting room on the other side of the grounds. They pulled up alongside the edge that led into the room. She jumped off and sprinted inside the meeting place.

"What do you want?" She asked them. "You seem to want to take over our home. Well, you are not going to get away with it. And don't try to make 'amends' for attacking my home. I was born here, grew up here, and now am queen."

They whispered amongst themselves. All the queens were sitting next to the kings, and the dragons in the back. Finally, one of the stouter queens stood up, gesturing towards Katrina to come closer. She pointed towards all of the other couples and said, "Look at all of us. We tried sending pages, and other dragons. Now, we need more space, and if you aren't going to give it to us peacefully, we need to take it over with a war. We hate to do this, but you aren't very helpful to us, and since we have more riders, dragons, and hatchlings, we are set to win. Please, we would hate to have to destroy our new home, but we will if we have too."

Katrina just looked extremely puzzled. "What do you mean you sent pages and other dragons? I was away at my honeymoon for the past few weeks, and I left my home in the care of Clarissa De Vendur. She should have told me if anybody sent anything like this. And I got no pages myself, or dragons. Not even a carrier pigeon."

Then, the other queen nodded. "Ah, I see. We thought that this 'Clarissa De Vendur' was the new queen here, so we took her word when she said that you would not be willing to compromise. We now understand. Hannah, would you call off the dragons? By the way, my name is Kaylie."

"Wait, wait, wait! I never said I would be willing to compromise my home. You just seemed to assume that. I would be willing to take in SOME of your riders, and if you gave me some of your eggs to make up for all of the eggs you cracked in my hatching grounds, that would be fine. But, I will not give up all of my home or my queenship. Don't even think about giving me any queen eggs, or bringing a queen here to my home."

"Fine, I didn't expect to get too much, but that is enough. Expect to see 40 dragons and their riders, each carrying and egg to show up soon."

A dragon flew into the space and started breathing fire. Blowing up all the bombs hidden inside the tables the queens and kings ran to their dragons and took off yelling, "This is war!!!!!"

"Mariana, what in the world do you think you're doing?! It was going to be just fine until you came in here and blew this place up!" Katrina cried jumping on her back. Mariana let Katrina look through her eyes, she saw that the other queens and kings had put many more bombs right around the spot she would have been sitting in a few more minutes. Katrina praised Mariana then flew out into the sky, she saw the backs of the dragons, to go prepare for the coming war.


End file.
